Page 285 of Falling Backwards
“Yep.”
We fall quiet again.
I look at him.He looks at his prepared message.
At length, he says, “I’m gonna send it.”
I whisper, “I’m happy for you.”
He sends the text, locks his phone, and tosses it across me.It thuds onto the carpet.
Then his arms are snaking around me and pulling me into a full hug.I hold him back as tightly as I can as he kisses my shoulder once, twice.
“It feels weird,” he says, his breath warm there, “to be facing all this in any kind of way after so many years.And I’m still in the mess.The tangle.But…I’m happy for me too.”
As we loosen out of the hug a bit, I say, “You should be.The baby steps matter so much.”
“Right?They turn into regular steps.”
I grin.“Thatisright.”Then I tell him, “I’m with you, by the way.Baby steps, regular steps, backtracking steps.I promise I’ll help you get through whatever happens or doesn’t happen.”
“Thank you,” he exhales, brushing my nose with his.
I nod.“Anytime and always, Luke.”
A smile comes to his lips just before they claim mine again, long, slow, holding.
And I’m not sure anymore whether I’m sleepy or interested in finishing the movie.For the moment, all I care about is celebrating this small victory with this person whose importance to me is larger than life.
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
L U K E
I dimly know a few things about the day.
Thursday.A day away from Christmas Eve.Got things to do, places to be.
But it all means nothing right now.
I’m not going to think about any of it until after I’m done having Maggie again.
Her moan is rough from recent sleep as I cradle her back against me and make unrushed love to her in the morning light filling my bedroom.It’s intoxicating, like every other sound of pleasure she’s ever given me.My groan is rough, too, along the shoulder of her shirt—I can’t fucking believe how good she feels, don’t know if I’ll ever be able to.The tight fit of us together is as perfect now as it was last night.Her body is as irresistible to my hands as then, as ever.The way she moves with me is as natural as the working of her lungs I can feel against my chest.
All of this added to how much I love her makes for the most breathtaking sense of being whole.
I skim my lips from her clothed shoulder to the exposed skin of her neck.I lay an open-mouthed kiss there that makes her shiver in my embrace, like we aren’t under the blanket and still wearing these t-shirts and sweatpants because we wanted each other as soon as we were awake, didn’t care to do anything with the clothes but tug our pants down out of our way.
Intoxicating as well, that shiver through her heated body, that hazy need that got us here.
I move my lips an inch and kiss her neck like that again.I feel the sheet under us shift just slightly, like she’s fisted it with the fingers she can’t really touch me with.She cranes her head around towards me, wanting my kiss on her mouth now; I give it to her and she takes it with sweet greed that I welcome.
Her other hand fumbles under her shirt to where mine has been lavishing attention on her breasts.Her gentle bite of my bottom lip is soothed by the touch of her tongue—I don’t know which makes me feel hotter.
